Pleated Dental Mask Side Structure for Close Cheek Adhesion

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional dental masks suffer from poor adhesion, with their sides frequently coming off from the wearer's cheeks, leading to inadequate virus and foreign substance penetration prevention.

Innovation Solution

A flexible dental mask design with non-bonded portions in the pleated areas and a nose bridge adhesive pad to ensure the mask sides adhere closely to the cheeks, allowing for shape deformation and preventing slippage.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Ease of manufacture

If both sides of the mask body are entirely bonded, then the mask structure is stable and easy to manufacture, but the sides cannot adhere closely to the wearer's cheeks when worn

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvemask body bondingVSAvoidadhesion to cheeks

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of manufactureVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The mask body is divided into bonded portions and non-bonded portions along the side edges. This segmentation allows the mask to combine the stability of bonded areas with the flexibility of non-bonded areas, enabling the sides to adhere closely to the wearer's cheeks while maintaining overall structural integrity and ease of manufacture.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Stability of the object's composition

If the mask body is made entirely bonded, then the mask maintains its shape, but it cannot flexibly deform to fit the wearer's face contours

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvemask shape stabilityVSAvoidshape deformation flexibility

Core Design Contradiction:

Stability of the object's compositionVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

Different portions of the mask body have different bonding characteristics. The central portion remains fully bonded to maintain shape stability, while the side portions include non-bonded sections that provide local flexibility. This local quality differentiation allows the mask to adapt to the wearer's face contours while maintaining overall shape integrity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

3Strength

If the pleated portions are fully bonded, then the mask structure is rigid, but the sides come off from the wearer's cheeks without close adhesion

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvemask structural strengthVSAvoidside adhesion

Core Design Contradiction:

StrengthVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The mask transitions from a static fully-bonded structure to a dynamic structure with non-bonded portions that can move and deform. The non-bonded portions allow the mask sides to dynamically adapt to the wearer's cheek movements and contours, improving adhesion reliability while maintaining structural strength through the bonded portions.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #15Dynamics

Data Source

PatentUS12575622B2Flexible face mask having sides that adhere closely to wearer's cheeks

Publication Date: 2026.03.17 WELLNESS

AI summary

Proposed is a flexible dental mask having sides that adhere closely to the wearer's cheeks, in which both sides of a rectangular mask body are bonded so that a predetermined length of a lower end of a pleated portion is not bonded, thus forming a non-bonded portion, and only the remaining part excluding the non-bonded portion is bonded, so the non-bonded portion is folded to flexibly cope with shape deformation when the mask is worn, enabling the both sides of the mask body to closely adhere to the wearer's cheeks when the mask is worn.